Image: Dmitry Morozov
Currency market fluctuations wrought as source material for dark, otherworldly experimental music. I'll take it.Silk is an instrument devised by Moscow-based sound artist Dmitry Morozov, aka vtol. It's comprised of tall metal towers strung with wire, a bit like neglected telephone poles. Near the tops of the poles are skeletal motorized "fingers," which are used to pull on the wires. There are five wires per pole, each corresponding to a different currency: dollar, Yuan, Euro, Canadian dollar, and Ruble. Needless to say (perhaps), the entire thing is controlled via an Arduino board."The tune, though, is all about data," Peter Kirn writes at Create Digital Music. "As Bitcoin and Litecoin cryptocurrencies fluctuate in value against the more traditional currencies, the imagined monetary values generate new melodies and rhythms. Recalling both the controversial recent silk road and its historical analog, these silk strings form a mythological musical song."I suppose the point has to do with the hidden string-pulling of currency markets—seldom observed by the people they most effect and as ceaseless as plate tectonics.